To identify the Best Women’s Colleges for 2018, College Consensus combined the latest results from the most respected college rankings with thousands of real student reviews to produce a unique consensus score for each school. According to College Consensus founder Jeremy Alder, “Like Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic does for movies, College Consensus gathers the publisher rankings and student reviews from around the web and distills the results into simple, easy to understand scores so students can quickly and easily compare schools. It is the ranking of all rankings, so to speak.” Learn more about the College Consensus rankings methodology at https://www.collegeconsensus.com/about/ .

To help prospective college students and their families evaluate the educational options open to them, College Consensus has identified the best women’s colleges, according to the combination of published rankings and student reviews. The top 10, out of more than 30, are:

1. Smith College – Northampton, MA

2. Wellesley College – Wellesley, MA

3. Scripps College – Claremont, CA

4. Bryn Mawr College – Bryn Mawr, PA

5. Barnard College – New York, NY

6. Cottey College – Nevada, MO

7. Mount Holyoke College – South Hadley, MA

8. College of Saint Benedict – St. Joseph, MN

9. Spelman College – Atlanta, GA

10. Simmons College – Boston, MA

“While nearly every other college and university today is coed, women’s colleges remain vibrant, exemplary, and essential to higher education,” Managing Editor Carrie Sealey-Morris explains. A large part of the reason is the fact that “Women are still underrepresented in the highest levels of leadership, from government to finance to entertainment to the tech industry, and we see the consequences daily.” The Consensus Best Women’s College ranking is intended to offer “a panoramic picture of the women’s college landscape” by focusing on the needs of students “looking for a women’s college to build the knowledge, expertise, skills, and confidence to take on the 21st century.” As Sealey-Morris explains, “Women’s colleges give young women of all backgrounds the opportunity to study in an affirming, encouraging community, with some of the most influential and accomplished women in the world.” For college-bound young women who want to walk in the footsteps of America’s great women leaders, the College Consensus ranking points in the right direction.

“College Consensus is designed as an aggregate ranking,” according to Managing Editor Carrie Sealey-Morris, “with a mission of providing prospective students and their families a clearer, more comprehensive view of college rankings.” College Consensus “evens the playing field by giving every perspective an equal voice,” as Sealey-Morris explains: “Unlike other rankings, which are limited by their methodologies […], there’s no gaming College Consensus.” With the College Consensus methodology “students get the data computed into a simple, single rating based on all other ratings, making it the fullest, most objective rankings out there.” By taking the long view, College Consensus can become an invaluable part of a prospective college student’s research process; as Sealey-Morris asserts, “Young women seeking the supportive, inclusive environment of an all-women’s college – from empowering academic programs to the networking power of robust alumni organizations – can look to College Consensus for the full picture.”